May 1 - "It's April 31st, and Everybody Knows..."

Because every joke is 37% funnier when explained...

I know... there's two groups of people landing here. People who recognize the song lyric reference in the title, and those who did not. But now that everyone at least has a link to get them up to speed, I can explain how I got here.

1. I really wanted to get 150 species in the books for Pacific County before April ended but just couldn't free myself up until May 1st. 
2. I thought how nice it would be if April just had 31 days.
3. I thought this thought at 3 AM May 1st as I was driving down to Pacific County, and I got the Dramarama song stuck in my head. Just... the April 31st version. 
4. I later wondered... IS Earth Day even on April 21st?? 
5. Fun Fact. It is not. 

And here we are. Dramarama was having a joke on us with "...everybody knows today is Earth Day." So, I'll have a joke about April 31st. And for what it's worth, the birds seemed to be having a joke with me over the course of the day. BUT it was a very good day with some good surprises. 

Starting with my owl search. 

Willapa Bay NWR

There are a few places that seem to identify as Headquarters. This is the one on the East shore of Willapa Bay, on Highway 101, with a boat ramp across the highway, and a nice view of Long Island. It wasn't my stop of choice. I had seen a report for Western Screech Owl from years back in the Ilwaco Watershed. Plan A was to go to bed eeeeeearly, get up equally early, and head directly there. But goodness. Leaving at 2:30 AM was hard enough to do. I did the math and realized I'd be hitting the watershed too close to dawn. Ah well. 

Trying for Owls in January... February... it all makes so much more sense. More hours of dark, and the owls are in their peak season for calling. But I only had one truly night-time owl to try for, and that sighting had encouraged me to give it a try. 

The full moon was up, the air was still, and traffic was light, so I decided to pull over at the headquarters and try for Western Screech Owls. I had no sightings to support this decision, but there are sightings sprinkled throughout the county, mostly close to water, whether along the bay itself or the rivers that feed it. 

So, I whistled from the parking lot. I'm proud of a lot of my owl calls, but honestly my Western Screech-Owl whistle is not one of them. It's almost disappointing when it works? But yes, it worked! I got a soft bouncing ball call from the little ... pond? slough? There's water. This was a water-adjacent owl. And if I understand the eBird data correctly, this was one of the toughest birds that I've been able to find this year. They're in the county. Reported annually. But people aren't always out looking for them, and these birds are often quiet. 

It was also my 148th species for the year (a number I'll note parenthetically) in the county. Not bad, given that it wasn't even May yet! ;)

Leadbetter Point - Martha Jordan Birding Trail - Attempt #1

I've gotten *really* good at packing for trips. I've left without my computer in years past. Never again. I've left without my camera charged in years past. Super diligent now. Change of clothes ready, just in case I had to go directly to work in the evening. Food for breakfast/lunch. Plenty of water. 

But no insect repellent. 

I'd been cavalier enough to run out the door without sunscreen back in April. And I came back with a little bit of pink. But... you can get in the shade. Poof! No more sun. The sun doesn't follow you quite so vigorously as a swarm of mosquitos. And it was a fine swarm indeed. To be fair, I DID have a can of off in the back seat of my car. I made a run for it. 

I pushed the button... nothing. I shook and shook... heard the liquid inside (and a Swainson's Thrush?? 149, but... Swainson's Thrush?)... pushed the button... nothing. (a second Swainson's Thrush called?? A little early on May 1st, but not impossible) I reached up to my forehead and squashed a mosquito that had landed. I tossed the useless can back into the back seat and closed the door. (Full Swainson's Thrush report here. Why couldn't they have been Western Tanagers?)

The Swainies kept calling as I scrambled back into the front seat and slammed the door shut with ONLY one mosquito in the cab - a minor success. I briefly toyed with the idea of just... exploring this trail without bug spray. You know, just... sprint-birding... picking things up by ear. 

But instead, I took the L, as the kids say. I drove back... looking at the Oysterville general store (not open until 8? 9? Can't remember, but it was just after 6:30). Asking the guy in the market parking lot in Ocean View when he opened, "7 O'clock..." he answered, in a very, "I've told you this a million times, pal..." tone. I kept driving and finally found a gas station that was selling bug spray. Amen. I got that, some more coffee, and a donut (a rare treat these days... the sugar is so hard on me!). I landed back in the parking lot at 7:30, ready to bird. 

Barred Owl! My first photographed owl of the year.

Just off the highway on my way to get bug spray

Leadbetter Point - Martha Jordan Birding Trail - Attempt #2

Soon to be salal berries

A lost hour is hard. But I made the most of this trail, making guesses about directions, and exploring as much as I could. I should note: The bug spray was on me, and it did *just* enough work. Any time I even slowed down to look at birds, the bugs swarmed close to me, sometimes landing, but I came away with no bites. Some new birds for the year came early and often - notably Black-throated Gray Warbler (150!), Wilson's Warbler (151), and Western Flycatcher (152).

Black-throated Gray Warbler

33 species for the walk, all in all. Most of the rest were birds I'd found elsewhere during the year. One surprise was hearing some "tschup" notes from a pair of Varied Thrushes. I would have expected Hermit Thrushes on this walk, but I got two other species instead! 

And then one more new species, Brown-headed Cowbird (153) before the trail dead-ended. I was hoping that the trail would give me a view of a pond at some point. A recent report had included a Cinnamon Teal, so I assumed I'd find at least a bit of water! I headed back, following one more side trail. Then I got to a fork. 

lol. 

See... I'm running around with a flip phone. I can call and text. It has a calculator, and an alarm, camera and video. It sure doesn't have GPS! So, (usually) I do a great job of keeping my bearings. But here I was, staring at this fork. Looking up at the grey morning sky, the sun would give me no help. In the end, I picked one of the forks, figuring that it was either a new trail (yay!), or it was the way back to the car (yay!), and that I could simply return to this point if it came to it. 

A few minutes in, I realized. OH... this for SURE is a new trail. Then I saw some familiar scat... and became less sure. Then I realized what these posts, placed sporadically throughout the trail, were actually doing. I looked this one over and realized that I was indeed walking East, in the direction of my car. I reached a pasture that I'd crossed on the way in and knew I was almost back to the car. 

No Cinnamon Teal - but still, some progress! I headed off to my next spot, Beard's Hollow, about an hour behind schedule. 

Beard's Hollow

This was the bummer of the day. I'd looked into the tides, and thought I could catch the falling tide in the morning, possibly finding some Black Oystercatchers that had been seen now and again during the year. It appears that I got there just past low tide, with the tide starting to return. I still took my time, picking up a flyover of an Evening Grosbeak (154), and then an Osprey (155) at the beach. 

The other highlights at the beach included a little pile of 200 Semipalmated Plovers, complete with Sanderlings, Western and Least Sandpipers mixed in. 

Least Sandpiper, Sanderling, Semipalmated Plover

Then I saw this: 

Looked like an anemone to me. But kind of far from home, sitting in the sand as it was. Then I saw *another* one... 

And...

This was my first exposure to By-the-wind Sailors. Apparently, they are closely related to Portuguese Man-o-War Jellyfish, but they come equipped with a sail! This helps them to move, with no effort on their part. They're apparently little colonies of organisms. It was a lot to take in, even having taught some biology. But apparently, these little guys sometimes get pulled into shore via an inconvenient current. This leads to these mass strandings as I saw here.

Pelicans.. gulls... rising tide... time to go. It was a beautiful and interesting stop, but I still had a few more to squeeze into my day. As I walked back to the car, I did pick up one more species for the year - Western Warbling Vireo, calling from the wetlands near the parking lot. (156)

A type of sedge, if I understand correctly

Ilwaco Marina

This was the closer of two sightings of Purple Martin. Could I find them?? Challenge accepted! 

Every bird needs a name tag like this

157!

Chinook Valley

I really had intended to have a kayak ready to drop in the water in here for a late April trip. But here I was... on the 31st of April, still without a kayak. Medical interestingness had delayed me. That, and work that had kept me busy nearly every day for the month. I haven't even thrown a roof rack on The Cackler. But the reason for that kayak would be to paddle the Chinook River and find what seems to be a recurring nemesis bird - American Coot. There have been sightings of them in the Chinook Valley, but birds quite easily tuck into parts of the slow river that are out of sight from the road. 

I did pick up my first Yellow Warbler (158), and my first Cliff Swallow (159) for the year, as well as a Ring-necked Pheasant (uncountable bird. These are released now and then in the county, so are never really "wild" birds). 

Saw this American Goldfinch just as I thought I should be keeping an 
eye out for Western Kingbirds

And then, to the surprise of ... not me ... I pulled over in a WDFW parking lot and took a fine nap.  It was noonish, and I was ten hours into a day on four and a half hours of sleep. It was time for a ten-minute nap. I took it, woke up refreshed, and continued up the road! (Type 2 narcolepsy is a blessing and a curse!)

And up the road, and up the road to Tokeland

I was cutting it close. I needed to get back to work in the evening (it being a Friday), and I was now in the 1:00 hour. Pulling into the Tokeland Marina, I didn't expect much, since it was high tide, but on April 31st, nearly anything could happen! I saw a group of people with binoculars, cameras, and spotting scopes also getting out of their cars. Birders!

The Grays Harbor Shorebird Festival was happening this weekend, and these birders were in town from the Portland Area. I chatted with them briefly when someone called out, "Phalarope!"

A Red-necked Phalarope (160) was derping around in the water near the marina dock. It was easily the easiest viewing I've had of any phalarope. We enjoyed watching it and photographing it. At some point, I thanked the man who found it, "I'm doing a big year in Pacific County, so this was much appreciated."

And Dear Reader... I have tried to be clear in here that my years are more "Big Enough" Years. I am neither unhinged enough, nor rich enough, nor remotely skilled enough to do anything that would be a Real Big Deal. But this slip here, calling it a big year, brought on the interrogation. One of the women looked at me closely, "So, what have you seen? What rare birds?" I chuckled briefly and just shook my head. It was going to be hard to backtrack exactly enough to explain what my year really looked like, let alone the fact that I was birding in a county that was not heavily birded. 

"I mean I'm at 160 species, but it's really been mostly pretty common birds." Some people in the group congratulated me on a pretty good start, but she apparently thought I was still just being coy. "Noooo... come on. What's a rare bird you've seen?" 

"Um... I had a Barrow's Goldeneye here? They're tough in the county."

"Oh yeah... they're really pretty birds." Pause... "So?? What else?" 

The secretive nature of some big years may have been overplayed in the movies and in lore. I *am* trying to do something interesting, and something that hasn't been done before (seeing 150 species in one calendar year in Pacific County; as well as all of the OTHER 38 counties in the state - probably a 20+ year project when I'm done). But this trail is blazed more with Common Nighthawks and MacGillivray's Warblers than anything earth-shattering.

And then I was saved by, "Are you Tim Brennan?"

And then I met Dennis Paulson! Dennis has written books on birding in Washington, books on shorebirds, and is the person I go to any time I capture butterflies or dragonflies that I can't identify. But we'd never put names to faces before today. I could still feel the suspicious eyes of the inquisitor on me, wondering what mega-rarity I was hiding from the public in an effort to be crowned the big year champion of Pacific County. But Dennis and I did our warm hellos, and I learned that he'd seen Ruddy and Black Turnstones up at North Cove earlier in the day. 

"Bye folks!" I smiled, thanking all of them for the help, but... I had very little time to hunt for these birds. I had been warned before leaving that tides and whatnot may make this a fool's errand, but I specialize in those. 

North Cove

I found a spot to park and found that there was a nice little trail that gave a good view of a rocky jetty. Looking down on the rocks, I saw nothing. Looking in the opposite direction, along the sandy beach, I saw shorebirds. But it couldn't be turnstones on a sandy beach... I started walking down the jetty trail. Paused, looked back, frowned. Couldn't be.  

Loons! Common and Pacific

I hustled down the short walk to get a full view of the jetty and found no rocky shorebirds. This brought my rocky shorebird total for the year up from zero to nil. No turnstones, Rock Sandpipers, Oystercatchers or Surfbirds. I got back to the car, drove just far enough up the beach to spy on the shorebirds in the sand - Dunlin! Fool's errand indeed. 

But hey... 160 for the year! This was more than I think I have ever had by the end of April. 

;)

A little bonus content - the Western Warbling Vireo from Beard's Hollow, along with what sounds like a Black-throated Grey Warbler, and American Robins in the background.

Hey! You're still here? 

Happy to have you reading along. These "books" are free, and ad-free! If they've been of value to you, please feel free to send a couple thank-you dollars along. See the Albatross Fund link on the sidebar (and right here) for more information.